Registrar of Companies didn't get complaint from PMO on PNB fraud: Minister

The Registrar of Companies (RoC) has not received any complaint forwarded by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) regarding the fraud in the state-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB), Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

PNB in February this year unearthed a fraud of over Rs 110 billion at one of its Mumbai branches allegedly carried out by fugitive billionaire diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi by fraudulently getting Letters of Credit (LoC) in connivance with a few bank officials.

The fraud amount has subsequently inflated to over Rs 143 billion as on date.

"Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has apprised that it did not forward any complaint to the Registrar of Companies either on July 26, 2016 or July 29, 2016," Shukla said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

An online petition received on July 26, 2016 as forwarded to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs through the centralised public grievances redress and monitoring system on July 27, 2016, he said further.

He was replying to a question whether the complaint connected to the PNB fraud received by PMO in July 2016 was sent to the RoC during that time.

The scam-hit lender posted a loss of Rs 134.16 billion for the last quarter of 2017-18, the biggest ever by any domestic lender, as bad loans surged.

With gross NPAs hitting over 18 per cent of gross advances by end of March 2018, the bank had bad loans at Rs 866.2 billion. Net NPA were Rs 486.84 billion (11.24 per cent of net advances).

For the full fiscal 2017-18, bank posted a standalone loss of Rs 122.82 billion against a profit of Rs 13.24 billion in 2016-17.

A multi-agency probe is already on to nab Modi and Choksi, who have fled the country to evade arrests and subjected to further investigation.